Charles Dexter Ward and the Imagineers – The Search for Franks Brains – album review

Fighting Boredom favourites Charles Dexter Ward and the Imagineers release their second album on Saturday, Fighting Boredom have been listening to it’s fuzzed out Psychedelic Blues Attack and have been completely blown away.

Just looked in the mirror, I don’t know what’s happened man, my hair is long, matted and seems to have been out partying on it’s own, my stubble is fast approaching a beard and my eyes are shrunken into dark circles with lines around them like the bed of a dried up lake. Last night man, last night some longhair handed me this album and just smiled, like the cat knew something that I didn’t, like he knew that nothing would be the same, and it got me man, it got into the skin on my fingertips and hijacked my brain, took me away, spinning and turning in a bluesonic psychedelic nightmare of a groove. I never even put it on man, I swear, it just got into my brain.

The Search for Franks Brains is the second record to be given out by Charles Dexter Ward and the Imagineers, I phrase it like that because I’m pretty sure it’s not all that’s out there, you see, if you’ve been reading my reviews at all you already know about the Imagineers’ Time Machine and how they have traveled around the dark stagnant corners of the past taking inspiration from the things that others have nightmares about. They’ve walked with the dinosaurs, they’ve drunk whiskey with rednecks in the long forgotten swampland’s, they’e been to the primal darkness that Lovecraft only dreamed about. Well, can you suggest where else this has come from?

Frank’s Brain is long gone in my opinion, lost out there with all the others, you can’t create this stuff without a little collateral damage, whether it’s psychic burnout at the front of a gig or your stereo growing legs and stumbling away, there’s a price to pay. Is it worth it? Fuck yes. From the blues psychotic boogie and mad ramblings of the shit hot band to the howling in tongues vocal style that has to be heard to be believed, every single second of this album is indispensable.

I’ve had it for weeks and believe me, it just gets better and better. From the first extended growl of intent and slow bastard blues boogie of‘The God Knows Stomp’ that grabs you by the crotch and throws you against a wall to the last acoustic strum fading away at the end of‘Wolves’ every moment here is dripping with fear, paranoia and fuzzed out rock’n’roll blues punk psychedelia. It is just brilliant.

I tried to be objective but then they gave me the album and it’s blown me away. If you want spaghetti western echoing fuzziness dripping with sex and surf then‘Apocalyptic’ is your song. If you want a bunch of drunken pirates howling over an acoustic guitar then‘Sabre Tooth Sally’ is made for you. Ultimately if you want an insane whiskey addled, grit gargling vocal backed by Satan’s own house band of Demons then you’ve come to the right place. They ain’t ever going to find Franks Brains, they’re long gone, but the search goes on in the darkness regardless.

The Search For Franks Brains by Charles Dexter Ward and the Imagineers, you need this one.